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The Guild Champions of Dragon's Maze

Magic: The Gathering’s upcoming Dragon’s Maze expansion will play host to 10 rare guild champions or “maze runners”. These legendary creatures each represent one of the ten guilds of Ravnica, sport guild flavors and styles, and are (almost) all eligible as Commander deck cornerstones. Five of these creatures will be available in Dragon’s Maze Intro Packs as the flagship cards. Let’s take a closer look at each guild champion:

Where to begin with Emmara. When we talked with Doug Beyer way back when about Emmara’s inculsion in Dragon’s Maze, I don’t think anyone expected this rather uninteresting Elf. Emmara lacks flavor, has an obscene casting cost for a rather plain green/white shell, and doesn’t do much of anything. Will she win Limited games? Probably. Could she be a Commander? Sure, maybe. What format will Emmara really shine in?

Lavinia boasts a solid 4/4 body and a potent Azorius detain for all of an opponent’s minor forces and trinkets. It’s important to note that this detain works on all permanents four mana or less except land, so artifacts and other cards all fall under Lavina’s particular brand of law and order. Protection from red is icing on the cake here, as Lavinia seems tailored to shutting down aggressive decks at the top of a control-oriented curve.

Using readily available warp effects such as Restoration Angelor various blink cards can keep Lavinia coming back for continual lockdown. As a Commander option, Lavinia may be a fun choice in a deck focused on enter the battlefield abilities. Lavinia will almost certainly annoy opponents and turn a table on the owner without representing any real threat, so perhaps not the optimum choice for Commander play.

Orzhov – Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts

At seven mana, Teysa has an amalgamation of abilities that run the gamut. Certainly a strong Limited first pick and an amazing card to have in any sort of sealed deck play, Teysa is a bit puzzling in other decks at this point in time. Decks that opt to avoid the mana cost by moving Teysa into play from the graveyard probably have better targets to use that don’t come with legendary board restrictions.

Teysa doesn’t directly embrace Orzhov by offering players extort, but there’s an argument to be made that her vigilant, unblockable frame and creature annihilation package represent the inevitability of death and taxes (Extorting the competition should be easy if they can’t attack). Teysa makes for a flavorful if expensive and somewhat impractical Commander option.

Dimir – Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker

If you’re playing Dimir at the upcoming Dragon’s Maze prerelease, a single copy of Mirko Vosk can go all the way. With four “grinds” on a single touch, this Vampire will drain your opponent’s library in just a few combat phases. Combined with other primary and secondary black/blue mill and grind abilities, Mirko’s ability can be devastating, and there’s built in evasion to help sneak the brain damage through.

Note that even a deck without any other library destroying cards can potentially burn an opponent’s deck out in just a few hits, so feel safe splashing Mirko Vosk into all kinds of decks with Gate support. As a Commander, mill/grind can be a tough prospect but Mirko can shine with reanimator/graveyard templates as a corpse catalyst.

Izzet – Melek, Izzet Paragon

Melek is a bit expensive for a 2/4, but if your deck has the instants and sorceries to back him up his power and toughness don’t matter all that much. Doubling down on removal, card draws, and extra turns being played from the top deck is potent indeed. Melek’s value will fluctuate in sealed and Limited play based on a deck’s removal/damage suite, but there’s a good chance that players will be able to pick up cards to complement his unique skill set as he’ll be showing up in the first pack cracked (After Dragon’s Maze release, Return to Ravnica block drafts will run DGM-GTC-RTR). In Commander it’s not too difficult to make Melek the lead in already degenerate templates that abuse extra turns, but keep in mind that you may wish to play with those players again and that sort of deck may make that prospect bleak.

Rakdos – Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch

The perfect option to lead the Rakdos charge, Exava will comes in ready to strike as a 4/4 with abilities that don’t allow an opponent to block easily. For Dragon’s Maze prerelease play and for deck options elsewhere, Exava’s bonus allows a player to take advantage of Rakdos, Simic, and Golgari themes to frontload creatures via +1/1 counters into an opponent with signature Rakdos flair. Exava may enjoy play in multiple formats and while not quite a competitive Commander with those statistics certainly a +1/+ counter deck could be constructed to conquer the kitchen table.

Golgari – Varolz, the Scar-Striped

Varolz is simple enough – All your creature cards in the graveyard have scavenge! Yes, that’s about as Golgari as it gets on our return to Ravnica. Not only does Varolz need to be dealt with quickly but his regenerative frame can make accomplishing that difficult. After Varolz gobbles up a companion in order to survive, the corpse can then be used for the greater good in the form of more counters, more power, and more toughness. That’s efficiency, the Golgari way. Players facing Varolz in Limited and allow the game to go long will be dealing with creatures that are simply too large to deal with, and decks with strong mana capabilities and some ways to stack up bodies in the yard will find Varolz an inexpensive and potentially dangerous Commander option.

Gruul – Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

Ruric Thar oozes Gruul flavor from his green/red body. He’s aggressive to a fault, does duty on attack and defense, and demands that he be destroyed on the field of battle in honorable combat. Failure to meet Ruric’s demands results in a swift punch to the opponent’s life total that they won’t soon forget, and Gruul players can enjoy taking advantage of the fact that bloodrushing cards onto Ruric will not trigger his ability. If Ruric gets through even once and then an opponent hits him with a removal spell, that’s still 12 points of damage.

It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of environment that this angry ogre will have a home in, but there’s no better way to annoy a table full of blue Commander players that all play draw spells than to come up with ways to keep Ruric around. As is the case with many of the other maze runners, Ruric is a massive beating in Limited play and a truly terrifying sight for a player that may be holding a removal spell – but is already down to 5 or so life.

Boros – Tajic, Blade of the Legion

This may turn out to be one of the better guild champions. A 2/2 indestructible for 4 would already be quite nice for Limited play, but throw in a few hasty common Boros friends and Tajic becomes an incredibly serious threat that simply cannot be dealt with. While many of the maze runners are excellent in Limited, Tajic’s low casting cost, indestructible body, and potentially massive damage (Can you imagine a Boros Charm on Tajic? While there are a *few* cards that could bounce Tajic, most removal won’t work!) set him up above the pack. Interestingly enough a four mana 2/2 indestructible legend probably isn’t going to make any ways in a Constructed environment as at 4 players need to be finding final points of damage from reliable sources and not trundling out a 2/2.

Simic – Vorel of the Hull Clade

Vorel can turn Simic threats into Simic monstrosities with a little mana, and can be the catalyst for all sorts of interesting decks that seek to win by placing counters on all sorts of things from Darksteel Reactor to a Liquimetal Coated planeswalker that triggers its ultimate the first turn in play. Vorel’s probably a bit slow and deliberate to make a splash in the Constructed environment, but as always anything can happen with new sets and cards. Vorel is essentially a Johnnydream card and players that notice him cropping in their Commander groups would do well to eliminate him as soon as his fragile frame sets foot on the table.

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I can’t stop thinking about Golgari’s Varolz in a Constructed format with Gruul (Jund、basically)。The ability to scavenge your Bloodrush cards? Wow! Hell、that fits right into Rakdos as well with all those +1/+1 counters。